As a young boy growing up in his native Belgium, Peter Piot dreamed of adventure.

Like most Belgian children in the 1950s and 1960s, he was well-versed in the tales of Tintin. And like the famously ginger-quiffed comic book character, he longed to solve mysteries in foreign countries. But while Tintin’s exploits usually saved his dog Snowy from peril, Piot’s would eventually help save millions of lives.

Professor Piot has devoted his life to discovering and fighting the world’s deadliest viruses. It is a life that has seen him co-discover the Ebola virus and lead the first international initiatives to fight the spread of Aids. He was the founding executive director of UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids) and is now director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The 63-year-old has charted his career in his new book, No Time To Lose, which is published this week.

It is a career path he was initially advised against when he was a student.He told Metro: ‘When I asked my professors for career advice they told me there was no future in infectious diseases – “Just don’t do that, that’s a waste of time, we have antibiotics, we have vaccines, it’s all solved”.

‘But I’m kind of a stubborn person and also I wanted to work in developing countries where infectious diseases were still the main cause of death, particularly in Africa. I was fascinated by microbes and man, the interaction and epidemics.

‘And then two years after graduating from medical school we discovered this Ebola virus, so my professors were wrong.’

The life-changing discovery came in 1976, before Prof Piot became what he calls ‘an outbreak detective in the heart of Africa’.

The then 27-year-old was sitting in a microbiology lab in Antwerp when a package arrived. In it were vials of infected blood belonging to a Flemish nun who had been carrying out missionary work in what was then called Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and had been struck down by a mystery illness that was killing scores of people.

‘I was in training in biology in the lab, learning how to isolate viruses,’ recalled Prof Piot. ‘We got a sample coming from what was then called Zaire in central Africa in a blue thermos. It was brought from a Catholic nun who had died from a mysterious disease they thought was yellow fever. We isolated the virus and it was unlike any other that was known.’

The blood sample was the catalyst Prof Piot needed to get out of the lab and into the field. He travelled to Zaire, often risking his life, to find out more about what would eventually be called the Ebola virus, named after the river where its first outbreak occurred. The virus causes a virulent disease called hemorrhagic fever which can lead to massive bleeding and kills up to 90 per cent of those infected.

Prof Piot was part of a team which went to Africa to trace the outbreak to its source, living in the rainforest.

‘Your first goal is to stop the epidemic and then you talk to people,’ he said. ‘What we found was that there were far more pregnant women affected and it turned out that they had gone to this mission hostel for ante-natal care and got injections and that’s how they were infected.

‘It’s like detective work. You take blood samples also but the essence is to think through how this can be transmitted. It’s talking, talking, talking… understanding.’

The Ebola outbreak was contained, but Prof Piot would soon find himself devoting his energies to an even bigger problem.

‘We discovered that Aids was not only a “gay disease” as it was called in the early 80s but that there was a major heterosexual epidemic going on in Africa,’ he said.

‘You don’t know when a new virus is discovered if this will be limited like the Ebola virus. With HIV, it’s millions and millions and that’s a tricky question to know, will it be a big epidemic or will it be limited?’

Prof Piot has spent his career lobbying world leaders, such as Nelson Mandela , and persuading pharmaceutical companies to lower their drug prices. He has also helped raise billions to fight Aids. The work of UNAIDS led to antiretroviral drugs being provided for seven million people.

He is rightly proud of his achievements when it comes to Aids, but he has regrets too. He cited the continuing increase in cases of HIV/Aids in Russia, expressing disappointment that he had been unable to convince the authorities there to tackle the problem in an ‘evidence-based’ way.

In his book, he also recounts how he was left dumbfounded by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who blamed the Aids crisis on Western pharmaceutical companies poisoning Africans. Mr Mbeki was persuaded by his health minister that Aids could be cured with garlic, beetroot and lemon juice.

Prof Piot said: ‘He (Mbeki) didn’t believe that HIV causes Aids and delayed the introduction of treatment. In Russia, the epidemic of HIV is driven by injecting drug use but the government is not really putting in place effective measures.’

Despite some of the recent achievements in combatting Aids, Prof Piot believes the fight must go on.

‘Aids is not over in contrast to what people sometimes think. My concern is that there is a perception now that it’s all done and so we can go to the next problem.

‘I think we need to sustain the effort. It’s not very sexy but it’s absolutely necessary because we know that particularly when the education and prevention effort are weakened we see a rise in new infections. We have to be in this for the long run.

‘Drugs on the ground are essential because people are dying. Without the drugs people die. ‘We still have close to two million people who die from Aids every year.’Go to www.notimetolose-book.com for more informationHIV/AIDS:- More than 60m people have been infected with the HIV virus since the beginning of the epidemic- About 30m people have died of Aids- 34m people live with HIV/Aids worldwide. 1 in 10 of those is a child- 1.8m people died of Aid-related illnesses in 2010- There were 2.7m new HIV infections in 2010- 69% of those who die from Aids are from Africa- New HIV infections have reduced by 21% since 1997- Deaths from Aids-related illnesses have fallen by 21% since 2005EBOLA:- There have been about 1,850 cases of the Ebola virus since it was discovered in 1976- More than 1,200 people have died from the Ebola virus- Ebola symptoms include a sudden fever, muscle pain, headache and a sore throat. This is often followed by vomiting, diarrhoea and internal and external bleeding- The Ebola virus is transmitted by direct contact with blood and body fluids of an infected person- It is often passed during burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased- Earlier this month, Canadian scientists said they had successfully cured monkeys infected with the Ebola virus through a cocktail of drugs. Trials on humans will begin before the end of 2014Sources: World Health Organization, UNAIDS